And Hast Thou Slain the Jabberwock

I said, trying to sound humble, "I'm not from around here. Where is the nearest private airport?"

He looked at me like I'd just asked the world's dumbest question and said, "Are you telling me that you don't know there's a war going on? We don't do recreational flying anymore. We need all the fuel we can get for our fighters and bombers." Shit!! What am I going to do now?

Then he added puzzled, "What is this thing anyhow?"

I said," It's a Piper Cherokee 180."

He said disbelieving, "The only thing Piper makes is the Cub. This looks like an ME-108. The Germans use those to ferry around their VIPs."

A lightbulb went on over my head - just like it does for the coyote in the cartoon. I'd heard the Me-108 comparison from the people at Cape Canaveral, which gave me a brilliant idea. I said conspiratorially, "It's experimental. We DID develop it from an ME-108 that we captured."

Shit!! Me and my big mouth! I already knew what his next question was going to be.

He said, "Who's we?"

Thinking fast I said nonchalantly, "The OSS. I work directly for Wild Bill."

It was the only secret World War Two agency I could think of. In my dimension, the OSS had become the CIA by 1947 and Wild Bill Donovan was put out to pasture for bad behavior. But who knows here?

The Captain nodded at me wisely and said, "So it's classified." I wasn't going to correct him...

I said, "Yeah, it is. We're trying out this new model to see if we can use it for the same purpose as the Nazis."

The guy said hopefully, "So you ferry people, then?"

I was digging myself deeper in the hole. But I wanted to sound agreeable and I couldn't think of any other way out. So, I said lightly, "Sure, but I'm between assignments." Then I added hopefully, "Can I leave it here until I've gotta provide another taxi ride?"

He said delighted, "Well... I can give you a job right now. Who do I call to clear it?"

Shit!! Now THAT would present a serious problem if anybody in authority answered the phone!!

I said with a bit too much zeal, "I don't need an authorization if you give me the fuel. We have to keep our activities low profile." I gave him a wink that said, "You know... Just between us insiders."

He gave me a devious look and said, "No problem, buddy. When can you leave?"

I said, "Just as soon as I grab some basic things. How about two hours from now?"

He said delighted, "The General and his wife will be waiting for you right here on the dot." So, that's how I got into the air-taxi business.

*****

If the bureaucracy needs you, then they'll use you. It's way too big to give a shit about reasons. Hence, there's always room for a clever young man to make hay in the nooks and crannies. I had a luxurious plane and the Army needed transport. So, who was going to look a metaphorical gift horse in the mouth. At least it got me away from the Sheriff.

I had compelling reason to vanish. Sooner or later, somebody local would figure out that I wasn't from this dimension and that discovery might get me dissected in a shadowy lab... right next to the ETs. So, I closed up the house and grabbed two suitcases, one with all my clothes and travel things and one stuffed full of cash. Then I cabbed my way back at the airport, ready to find the love of my life.

The General was an arrogant asshole and his wife was a fussy old bat who complained about the buffeting all the way up to DC. The flight would have been a lot less turbulent if hadn't had to travel over land all the way to Washington. But there were allegedly German aircraft carriers out in the Atlantic... the ones that they'd seized from the British. So, it made sense to stay inland.

With the refueling, the thousand-mile trip took well into the late evening, even at 130 knots. Finally, I circled over a night-time Capitol. It was pitch dark down there due to the war. But I followed along the moon path glittering off the Potomac to Washington National -- if you're wondering about the name... Ronald Regan was still making movies back then.

During the trip from Lauderdale the General had made the unilateral decision to hire me as his personal chauffer. I didn't blame him. The interior of the Piper is plush compared to the cockpits of all of the other aircraft from that era. Which was lucky for me. Now I had the foundation for a new identity.

DC wasn't the utterly self-absorbed place that it was in my day. We were at war. So, the pork barreling that's endemic in that den of iniquity was limited strictly to the military. That in turn, cut down on the vainglorious self-indulgence that gave us the marble edifices that infested the Federal Triangle and Constitution Avenue in my dimension. It also vastly improved the look of the place.

Or course, there was no Metro and I needed a way to get around town. So, I bought an unassuming, but very reliable '57 Chevy and rented a small apartment in Alexandria near DCA. I could have lived a lot more opulently, because I still had my suitcase full of cash. But I wanted to keep a low profile.

Then I proceeded to serve at the General's beck and call, providing transportation for any bigwig the guy wanted to bestow his largess on. I was paid a minor amount of money by the standards of my dimension. But things were cheaper in this one and it gave me access to all the fuel I'd need.

The flights themselves weren't demanding. Every week or so I would ferry some VIP from place to place, usually on Army business. I even started to carry extras like snacks and booze to keep my fat-cat guests happy. In the meantime, I scoured every resource in the DC area looking for any mention of Cat.

I was aware that I was in the ideal position to accomplish my true goal, which was to reunite with my beloved wife. I had visited the Census Bureau and gone through their records. Cat was alive in 1960. So, I knew that she existed. That was a relief. There hadn't been a new census since then and so her current location was unknown. She was last recorded as living in Manhattan.

I tried the Social Security Administration in Baltimore. But that was a laughable exercise, even for me. For some reason, the folks at that place weren't inclined to share my ex-wife's personal information with me. They even mentioned "stalking charges" if I contacted them again.

But of course, fate really enjoys fucking with me. Hell... maybe that's the case with all of us. Anyhow... I had finally just about reconciled myself to a life of loneliness and despair when the fickle bitch waved her magic wand and changed things -- radically!!

All summer, I'd been ferrying eggheads from LaGuardia down to a strip in the wilds of East Tennessee. I didn't know who these people were and more importantly why they were being dropped off in that shithole part of Appalachia. But it was clear that they weren't military. If I had my guess, I'd say that they were scientists, or some other species of hyper-intelligent nerd.

Still, it was undoubtedly a classified government operation. Because the fellow who scheduled the flights warned me NOT to talk to the passengers and I was told to forget anything I overheard. I was to pick people up in New York and drop them off in Knoxville, no questions asked.

I did a one-hour hop on that fateful morning - up to a little strip in Princeton, New Jersey. It was a routine flight. But it was clear that I was going to be picking up a very important person. I even had an Army PR "handler" in the right-hand seat... put there to smooth the way for my mystery individual.

The handler's name was Todd and he reminded me of my old roommate of the same name. He was extremely good looking in a crisp uniform that was decorated with the kind of ribbons that the Army awards for superior paper shuffling... think, Tom Cruise, in "A Few Good Men."

He was also a world class manwhore. So, I had to suffer through endless tales of female conquest to a point where I was considering opening the passenger-side door and doing a radical right bank. We taxied up to a building, that passed for a terminal at that backwater field. I kept the prop turning while Todd went bounding out to greet the frail white-haired gentleman who was our primary passenger.

All-in-all it was SOP, except there was a second passenger with the old man. She was a tiny woman. But she had both Todd and my undivided attention... Todd's because she was drop dead gorgeous, and mine because she was my long-lost wife!!

The fact that I didn't pass out from sheer shock is a tribute to my physical fitness. But still, my vision actually pixilated and I got a strong metallic taste from all the adrenaline that had just dumped into my blood stream.

I'd missed Cat intensely. I had mourned her for six long years. I had devoted my life to finding her. And now, here she was blithely walking up to my aircraft. Of course, I knew that she was dead - and I was dead in her world. So, you can imagine how totally fucked up the current situation was.

Cat and the old guy were helped into the cabin by their friendly minder. Todd, manslut that he was, was staring fascinatedly at Cat's beautiful round ass as he helped her in. I had the presence of mind to turn my head and gaze intently out the left side of the aircraft. I didn't want to give my wife a good look at who was driving the airplane, at least until I'd gotten myself under control.

Todd was especially solicitous to Cat. Gee... I wonder why? On the other hand, I was speechless, which was unremarkable given that I wasn't supposed to talk to the passengers. Cat didn't give me more than a casual glance as she boarded. There was a pilot's seat between us and I had on a baseball cap and those mirrored aviator sunglasses. More importantly I was dead.

I had my usual chat with ATC, gunned the engine and we soared off in the direction of Tennessee. It turned out that the other passenger was Albert Einstein. I knew about Einstein from my dimension. So, I didn't need to be introduced. It meant that the place where I'd been taking all those eggheads was the Manhattan Project facilities at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories.

While we were in the air, two things were occurring simultaneously. The horndog in the right seat was bombarding the passenger in the left rear seat, meaning my wife, with sleezy charm. It was such an outright attempt at seduction that it was embarrassing for everybody except Todd.

She, in turn, was ignoring him by talking solely to Einstein. Cat was clearly one of the great man's acolytes, which made sense given her abilities in physics -- at least, in my dimension. I was disregarding the absurdly self-serving conversation that Todd was trying to start-up. But I was listening carefully to the discussion that was going on in the back seats - because it explained what had happened to me.

The two of them were debating Einstein's theory of the origins of the universe. The thing that I got out of their conversation was that the concept of a single reality was overrated. According to Einstein, the universe is composed of an infinite number of parallel universe "bubbles" that were created simultaneously by a single seminal event called the Big Bang.

The outcome of that was like the phenomenon that you get if you arrange two mirrors so that their reflections recede into infinity. Meaning... it produces an unending duplication of the same thing. And thus, there's an infinite array of possible outcomes in each reality -- all dictated by context and choice.

I hear you saying, "What the fuck are you talking about!!?" Well for example... In your universe you turned left and went into a bar. But in another reality, you turned right and were run over by a bus. Same situation - two different choices - two different outcomes - both valid -- and all happened to you.

In my universe, Cat was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the Cat who lived in this dimension wasn't. The same was true with me. If I hadn't chosen to fly toward the Sargasso Sea I wouldn't be where I was now. That was fortunate in my case, because it put me in a dimension where my beloved wife was still alive.

As you can no doubt guess, I was experiencing a firestorm of emotion. Nevertheless, I knew that I would have to keep those feelings in check. There were far too many unknowns - any one of which could prove fatal. THAT successfully tamped down my desire to do something stupid.

I mean... I could've immediately revealed myself... maybe I should have. But Really??!! Seriously??!! the Cat in this world knew that I was dead. So, I had no freaking idea what she'd do if I turned around and said, "Ta-da... I'm back!!" I was betting it wasn't anything I wanted to experience.

Based on what the Sheriff had told me - we'd lived separately for a period - but why? Maybe the answer would give me an approach. At any rate... the shock of me just suddenly reappearing would probably kill her. So, I needed more information. That was the reason why the anonymous pilot role fit the circumstances perfectly.

Knoxville McGhee-Tyson was mostly military in this dimension. I touched down on runway 234-Right and taxied across the parallel runway to the terminal. There were three C-119 Flying Boxcars queuing up on the reciprocal like it was rush hour. It looked like, things were very busy around there.

An honor guard turned out to meet and escort Einstein. They respectfully bundled the great man and his acolyte into a waiting staff car. Douchebag jumped into the front seat and they motored away. I was left post-flighting the Piper and wondering how I could hitch a ride the 25 miles to the Oak Ridge facility before shithead made any headway with my wife.

I'd parked the Cherokee in one of the hangers on all of the other trips. So, I asked the PFC who was helping me roll it in if he knew anybody who wanted to sell an old car. The guy was a member of the Tennessee National Guard so he should know the local scene.

The dude stood there scratching his ass thinking -- or maybe his ass just itched. Anyhow, after a long hesitation he said, "Don't know about no car but Charlie over there has an Indian Scout that he's trying to peddle. Would cost you maybe forty bucks."

That was perfect! The Scout would have been over thirty years old in that timeline but they were still one of the best motorcycles made. This one looked like it was war-surplus because it was olive drab and still had the big spotlight between the handlebars. But those bikes were both agile and fast and they can run forever on almost no maintenance. It's why the military used them.

I got two twenties out of the stash in my backpack, and I was on my way within the hour, trailing a cloud of blue smoke. The guy I'd bought it from even threw in a leather flying helmet and goggles. It's about 25 miles between Knoxville and Oak Ridge and the terrain is verdant and mountainous. So, the trip over on Tennessee 62 was scenic -- except, I could have done without the rain.

I got into Oak Ridge proper around dinner time. The city itself is in a long and deep valley with ridges that give it its name. The idea was that the ridges would contain any stray detonations in case somebody fucked up. In fact, those compartmentalized valleys were one of the main reasons why Oak Ridge was chosen.

The city itself was top-secret. The Federal government created it from scratch over a measly two-year period. In that time, the place went from deeply rural to a population of 75,000, which made Oak Ridge the fifth largest city in Tennessee. But of course, you couldn't find it on a map. That's because it was dedicated to only one thing... the atomic bomb.

The whole thing was lit up like a carnival as I crested the ridge of the last valley. The Manhattan Project was well documented in my dimension. So, I knew more about it than any normal person who was living in this one - like the fact that nothing was supposed to be in that valley except for a few rednecks. It was also the reason why my clearance problems had to be dealt with first. Fortunately, I had an answer.

The administration building was called, "The Castle on the Hill." It was situated on a ridge on the east side facing the ridge where I was sitting. On paper, it was the Clinton Engineering Works, which was the smokescreen name for the Manhattan Engineering District. It was where I had to go to get help.

In my mind, it was just a matter of presenting myself at the guard shack and asking to talk to my old pal Les Groves. I had transported the General numerous times. He was a guy who particularly liked the Tennessee sipping whiskey that I kept on those flights. And he was in charge of the entire project.

The MPs were skeptical when I approached them. But I insisted. So, they called into the building where Groves had his office and after a couple of minutes a staff guy came out. He was wearing a SILVER oak leaf. So, he must have been close to the General. He said, friendly, "The General told me that there isn't enough whiskey to make him come out in this rain. So, he sent me."

I laughed courteously and said, "I'm his ferry pilot and I'm stuck here for a couple of days. Can you guy's help me out - find some place to put me up?"

The guy gestured down the hill behind us and said, "We already know who you are. And the General has authorized a chit for the Guest House until the end of the week." And so, my friends, that was how a dead man became a temporary resident of the non-existent city of Oak Ridge Tennessee.

The Guest House was where they put up the VIPs. It lay just up the hill from Jackson Square, which was the town center at that top-secret place. And my having a bed there was humble testimony to how far excellent whiskey will get you in this world.

I'd planned to reconnect with my wife as soon as I could find her. So, I started searching for Cat as soon as I'd dumped my backpack. There was a big dance being held a couple of hundred yards down the hill at the tennis courts and Cat loves to dance. So, I was pretty sure I would find her there.

I made my way down the hill dressed in my best outfit, black silk shirt and matching white linen pants. I was a man of contrasts -- in more ways than the obvious. The rain had stopped and there was a crescent moon hovering over what was starting to become a beautiful Tennessee evening.

The swing music was wafting its way up to me as I got to the place where the dance was being held. It was a cleared-out tennis court with a real band playing Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey tunes. I stood in the darkness on the fringes hunting for Cat among the dancers.

The band was playing Moonlight Serenade, which was one of the most romantic songs of the 40s era. I'd walked about halfway around the floor when I stopped short and just stared. My wife was swaying in the arms of my douchebag former passenger. Shit!! He'd made a lot of headway in the six hours since I'd last seen them.

The d-bag had been relentlessly hitting on Cat. So, I guess I kinda expected to see what I saw. But still, the thunderbolt of jealousy nearly buckled my knees. I know it's unfair to think of it as a betrayal. I mean... I was dead for God's sake... and Cat was a gorgeous and sensual woman. So, she had a perfect right to be seduced by any man she chose - but, Really??!! Todd??!! Seriously!!??

They danced swaying closer and closer until she was plastered against him, head turned on his chest, her fingers locked with his, her eyes closed dreamily. They were in a world of their own as the music continued, "Just you and I, a summer sky, A heavenly breeze, A kiss in the trees."

It was too much. I stumbled across the road and threw up right in the middle of those metaphoric trees.

Unfortunately, Todd was bunked at the Guest House too. So, I had to endure him at breakfast. He looked chipper and well fucked. The minute he saw me, he came over brimming with camaraderie, pulled out a chair and sat grinning like an idiot. I was trying to ignore him.